TikTok ban looms, leaving content creators’ livelihoods in jeopardy

AI-assisted summary
• TikTok is likely to shut down on Sunday following a Supreme Court ruling upholding a ban on the app.
• The ban is expected to have a significant impact on content creators, many of whom depend on the platform for profits.
• tiny businesses that have benefited from TikTok’s marketing reach are also bracing for potential losses.

It took roughly four years for Christopher Rudd to construct up a 716,000-plus following on TikTok. After Friday’s Supreme Court selection, there’s a chance the platform ‒ Rudd’s main source of profits ‒ goes dim.

Rudd – who goes by Kit Lazer online – had juggled a day job with creating TV- and film-related content for years. When a recent episode or movie dropped on a streaming platform, Rudd would wake up at 5 a.m. to watch, record a review, edit and post on TikTok early enough to compete with the critics who were given early access, and then head to his typical 9-to-5 in sales. 

The work paid off; Rudd started collecting enough views and brand deals to quit his day job last June. While packed-period content creation comes with its own challenges, Rudd said the gig has been a aspiration arrive factual, offering him the chance to attend film festivals and interview stars like Glen Powell. 

“I just did it as a hobby because it makes me joyful to pretend, and then it was actually working, and I couldn’t depend it,” Rudd, 36, said. “Only TikTok can do that.” 

But Rudd and other content creators on the app face an doubtful upcoming. TikTok is likely to leave dim Sunday after the Supreme Court upheld a law effectively banning the app. Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s president of global business solutions, estimated in a court filing that just a one-month shutdown could navigator to nearly $300 million in lost profits for almost 2 million U.S. creators, said  

“This instant feels quite devastating for so many people, but in particular for the creators,” said Brooke Duffy, an associate professor at Cornell University’s Department of Communication who researches digital and social media industries. The ban has “the potential to sever their livelihood without a fallback.” 

Part-period content creators receive a hit, too

Roughly 170 million Americans – about half of the country’s population – use TikTok. A tiny percentage are packed-period content creators like Rudd, but the app has also proven to be a lucrative side gig. 

Talia Cadet, 35, of Capitol Heights, Maryland, works as a social media and digital media executive but said TikTok is the source of about 15% of her profits, allowing her to live more comfortably in a high-expense-of-living metropolitan area.  

“When I’m not working, I’m working (on TikTok),” she said.  

Cadet ‒ one of eight creators listed as plaintiffs in the case that challenged the federal TikTok ban ‒ said she’s on other apps, but TikTok is her platform of selection. She has more than 160,000 people following her posts on topics like the Washington, D.C. metropolitan, books and Black-owned businesses.

“That’s where I thrive as a creator. That’s where my largest spectators is,” she said. “TikTok is distinctive in its search capabilities and its algorithm and how it has allowed creators to display up as their truest, most raw, authentic self.” 

Megan Diem Easton, a creator based near Nashville with over 80,000 followers, has been using TikTok as a side gig since 2022, posting about wedding planning, color analysis and more. The money wasn’t enough to live off, but she said it helped pay off her car and learner loans and worry less about her account equilibrium. 

Then, in December, Diem Easton said she was laid off from her marketing job, leaving TikTok as her only source of profits. Now, she fears TikTok is going away, too.

“I did all this challenging for four years, and almost in a way created a business from the ground up, and it’s being taken away through no fault of my own,” Diem Easton, 25, said. “It feels very similar to being laid off from a job.” 

Impact on tiny businesses: ‘I am already grieving’

Paulina Hoong, 29, said her tiny business, Menmin Made, has seen significant growth thanks to TikTok.

Posts on her Asian American and Pacific Islander-inspired prints, home goods and apparel have earned her more than 45,000 followers on Instagram and another 19,000 on TikTok, fueling enough yield for Hoong to run her art business packed-period since 2022.  

Business comes in waves, but she said the boost from social media took her “from struggling to more comfortable,” with a “significant portion” of sales stemming from TikTok.  

Hoong encouraged her TikTok followers to discover her on other platforms and pursue her newsletter, but she worries sales will drop once TikTok is gone.  

“I am already grieving the setback of TikTok. It felt very emotional for me this week,” she said. “Not only has TikTok helped out my business, but it has helped me develop into the person who I am today through getting exposure to so many different opinions, from different cultures.” 

TikTok estimates tiny businesses are poised to misplace over $1 billion in just one month if the app is shuttered. 

A ‘demanding’ period for creators

Jessica Fennen, 30, runs an animal sanctuary with nearly 80 reptiles, amphibians, and fish – many of which have physical or neurological disabilities. She says it wouldn’t have been feasible without platforms like TikTok.

While Fennen has been posting online since 2015 and has been a packed-period content creator since 2020, her profits started to pick up in 2022, when TikTok videos featuring her frogs routinely went viral. Much of that money has gone back to the sanctuary, where Fennen has taken in more rescues and is working on renovating a home in Michigan to better accommodate the animals.

“TikTok is really where I found the biggest spectators and the most monetary achievement,” she said. “The entirety of the renovations have expense me thousands of dollars and have exclusively arrive from TikTok.” 

With her 235,000 TikTok followers potentially going away, Fennen worries she’s bitten off more than she can chew. Not only is one of her main sources of profits disappearing, but TikTok’s editing software – which was the starting point for posts on TikTok, Instagram and other platforms – is leaving with it.   

“(If I have to) get a regular job again, that will transformation the amount of hours that I have to work with the reptiles,” she said. And after expanding the sanctuary, “I have more animals and more responsibilities. More vet bills. More food costs. And so not having a source of profits (through TikTok), it has been seriously demanding.” 

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Where will TikTok creators leave next?

With TikTok’s ban looming, creators are left scrambling to figure out their next steps. 

Yes, there are other platforms – Rudd, for instance, has a podcast, a Substack, 10,000 YouTube subscribers, and more than 130,000 Instagram followers –but he said they all pale in comparison to TikTok as profits streams. The app’s creator pool and brand deals supply roughly 90% of Rudd’s profits.

“I aspiration I can continue to make a living doing this without TikTok,” Rudd said. “I don’t, at this instant, view it that way, but hopefully that’s the case. But I don’t have any detailed schedule of action. I’ll continue to talk about movies just because I adore movies, and if anybody listens, that’s up to them.”  

Cora Lakey, 30, a packed-period creator since October with more than 103,000 followers on TikTok, said 70% of her profits comes from the app’s creator pool, which pays eligible users based on their videos’ act. Money from Instagram and YouTube, where Lakey has a combined 27,500-plus followers, has yet to contrast.  

“If I make $100 on YouTube Shorts, I’ll make over $1,000 on TikTok,” she said. “That’s why I’m worried about TikTok. They compensate creators fairly for our output.” 

Lakey has been exploring alternative apps.  She joined RedNote, a Chinese app that has taken off as a potential TikTok alternative, and said she would consider rejoining corporate America if TikTok does leave dim.  

“The largest platforms are YouTube and Instagram, so I ponder I’m just going to make it my 5-to-9 after my 9-to-5 to be successful on (Instagram) Reels,” she said. “But there’s no copying TikTok. It’s the best, and people are upset for a rationale.” 

Cornell’s Duffy warned that it would be a test for creators to pack up and launch their careers on a divide platform if TikTok goes dim. She pointed to Vine, another short-form video app that shut down in 2017, upending some creators’ careers.  

“People have spent not just years building a throng on this platform, but learning how it works and trying to figure out how to maximize visibility, how to develop their followers, what this population looks like,” Duffy said. “It’s a job. For many, it’s a 24/7 job.” 

Lavelle Dunn, an LA-based creator with more than 730,000 followers, has been a packed-period content creator since 2023. Money from the TikTok creator pool has been a steady, reliable source of profits the history year, he said, while other platforms have failed to compete.

“I’m on Instagram, of course, and I’m starting to get onto YouTube, but I make zero from those other platforms,” he said. “This is a very scary period for me.” 

The app’s upcoming isn’t obvious, even with the ban upheld. President Joe Biden has said he won’t enforce the ban, and President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to save the app. On Friday, Trump said he would make a selection on the app “in the not-too-distant upcoming.”

“The next phase of this attempt – implementing and ensuring lawful operation with the law after it goes into result on January 19 – will be a procedure that plays out over period,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Friday. 

Dunn, 30, is holding out aspiration that TikTok will survive, but he has ideas on where to leave next if the app does leave dim. YouTube will likely get more of his attention, he said, and while he’s not impressed with Meta’s selection to cancel its diversity, ownership and inclusion program, he said it’s too large of a platform to ignore.  

But “TikTok is in its own lane. There is no comparison with this app just because of that algorithm,” he said. “I just desire to continue to fight until the complete, keep everyone (with) a joyful face. And if doesn’t work out how it should, I’m confident we all will continue to shift and discover other ways to keep a roof over our heads.”